FLYING BUTTRESS

This article appears in Volume V10, Page 585 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: FLA-FRA

FLYING BUTTRESS , in architecture, the

term

TERM

given to a structural feature employed to transmit the thrust of a vault across an intervening space, such as an aisle, chapel or cloister, to a buttress built outside the latter. This was done by throwing a semi-arch across to the vertical buttress. Though employed by the Romans and in early Romanesque

work

WORK

, it was generally masked by other constructions or hidden under a roof, but in the I2th

century

CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

it was recognized as rational construction and emphasized by the decorative accentuation of its features, as in the cathedrals of Chartres, Le Mans, Paris, Beauvais, Reims, &c. Sometimes, owing to the

great

GREAT

height of the vaults, two semi-

arches

ARCHES,
COURT
- COURT
- COURT (from the O. Fr. court, Late Lat. cortis, curtis, a popular form of class. Lat. cohors, gen. cohortis; the mod. Fr. form tour is due to the
  influence
  - INFLUENCE (Late Lat. influentia, from influere, to flow in)
  of the Lat. curia, the word used in medieval documents to translate " court " in the feudal sense)
- COURT, ANTOINE (1696-176o)
OF

were thrown one above the other, and there are cases where the thrust was transmitted to two or even three buttresses across intervening spaces. As a vertical buttress, placed at a distance, possesses greater power of resistance to thrust than if attached to the

wall

WALL (O. Eng. weal, weall, Mid. Eng. wal, wane, adapted from Lat. vallum, rampart; the
original
- ORIGINAL
O. Eng. word for a wall was wag or tenth)
WALL, RICHARD (1694-1778)

carrying the vault, verticalbuttresses as at Lincoln and Westminster Abbey were built outside the chapterhouse to receive the thrust. All vertical buttresses are, as a

rule

RULE

, in addition weighted with pinnacles to give them greater power of resistance.

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